Three Weeks Later…
by TiA aRiEl
Summary: There was still pain when she was mentioned, still some slumps that he got into, but he plowed through obstacles and believed everything would, eventually, turn out okay. Oneshot


A/N: I love reading depressing murder mystery stories. They always stir my creative juices and I always love what emerges when I get on Word. I hope this story both touches you, makes you feel a little sad, but when you find the words 'the end' you feel a little spark of hope, for life, and healing, and believing that things will, eventually, get better.

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**Three Weeks Later…**

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_He sat in their living room, wondering if he should get the carpet removed because the stains of her blood and body fluids wouldn't come out. He contemplated, briefly, how he was going to get rid of the stench of a dead body from his furniture. He debated on whether or not to keep her three fat cats, who shed all over their house, that he'd never wanted. He pondered on getting a new house, because screams that couldn't possibly be hers kept echoing around the empty space._

_Some people had probably whispered behind his back "Inu-Yasha, knew he was a cold mother-fucker," and other obscenities when he'd processed his own wife's murder scene, carefully and with precision, not a tear shed, not even a wince._

_What they didn't know was that he wasn't even him anymore. He was empty, like someone had pulled the plug on him, and everything just washed down the drain; he was running on autopilot. What they didn't know was that he'd returned from England a day early, and found her broken, prone form on the floor. What they didn't know was that he held her stiff, cold body for twenty hours straight, and cried, and cried, and cried._

_They didn't know he screamed until his throat was raw._

_He didn't even have the heart to tell their only son, Kei, away on vacation, that she was dead. That when his son finally found out, through the news, he caught the next plane back to New York from Hawaii and hurled angry words until he broke down in Inu-Yasha's arms._

_And now, two weeks later, forced on vacation by his caring secretary, and no longer able to drown himself in his work, he found himself on their blood-splattered couch, with his answering machine blinking 23 in red, flashing text. For the first two days, Kei stayed with him, slept in their spare bedroom and cooked him dinner and cleaned the house. Then he had to get back to work, and Inu-Yasha was left with "well-meaning" casseroles and stale bread and chunky milk._

_He was gaunt and sparsely seen, often closeting himself up in his office and redirecting calls to his lower-ranked co-workers, while he went over her case over and over and over again. He sometimes went two days solely on coffee and the light from his tiny bending lamp, thinking 'what if' and trying to connect her murder to anything that might give any clue whatsoever as to who and where her killer was._

_Kelly, his secretary—friend, even—finally forced him out of the building, promising to send her file to one of the top dogs, saying with raw emotion that if he worked himself down into the ground, he wouldn't do Kagome any good._

_And her name—God her name! Every time someone said it, he choked. Every sympathetic note, letter, and message he listened to make him sick when it mentioned her name. Because if they didn't say her name, he could pretend they weren't talking about her. His wife…his friend, his companion, his psychiatrist, his **everything**, his fucking everything, goddammit!_

_So he stopped taking mail, stopped listening to messages, and intercepted well-meaning people before they said anything to hurt him._

_But no one knew. No one knew all these things about him, because whenever he was faced with talking to someone, he stayed calm, cool, and collected. Because he didn't give a rat's ass what they thought, and they didn't deserve to know what he really felt._

_Kelly could see right through him, but Kei wasn't there to see how he was holding up, though half the messages on his machine were probably the boy himself._

_Sometimes he wondered how others dealt with tragedy. All he knew was that there were so many suicides he couldn't keep up. Sometimes he figured he should keep up the tradition and jump off a building. Sometimes he thought too much._

It was another week before there was a knock on the door.

"It's open," Inu-Yasha called, his voice rough and unwelcoming. His son entered, and gazed upon the unshaven, raggedy man that could not possibly be his father and sat down beside him, dropping his briefcase near the couch.

There was a short, impatient silence.

"I thought you were supposed to be at work." Inu-Yasha snapped, glaring at the boy with bloodshot eyes. He smelled like cheap beer and cigarettes.

"I thought you were quit smoking." He answered calmly. His father cracked a sardonic grin and sucked deep on the white tube of tobacco, exhaling a putrid cloud of smoke. Kei turned his face slightly.

"I did. Yesterday, and now I started again."

"It's a disgusting habit." He retorted, annoyed by the way Inu-Yasha blew him off.

Kei barely knew the man sitting next to him now. His father was well respected, smart. The man sitting next to him was like a warped, distorted shadow of the man he used to know.

Inu-Yasha shrugged despondently. "Uh huh." Kei knew that voice, that faraway look in his father's eyes. Their conversation was over; he wasn't going to respond again. He sighed gently and picked up the briefcase, gazing around the room. Not an item out of place, not a sound since the cat's had been given away. Inu-Yasha looked so small, broken, and hopeless in the huge emptiness of the house.

Kei pulled the burning cigarette from his father's immobile fingers, crushed it in the ashtray, and pressed a quick kiss to his forehead. "I love you, dad." He didn't expect an answer, and he went to the door. Something kept him back. He heaved a deep sigh, set down his briefcase, and went to the refrigerator. Two cans of beer, molding foods he couldn't identify, and an empty bottle of bourbon lined the shelves.

He knew he had to make an intervention in his father's life, and fast.

He restocked the fridge, changed into casual clothes, and made dinner. Eventually a groggy Inu-Yasha stumbled into the kitchen, roused by the smell of actual food. "Fuck, I don't even remember what good food smells like, I've been eating sympathy casseroles so fucking long." Kei looked up from his newspaper and the dinner of steak and potato.

"There's a plate for you in the oven, gravy in the saucepan, and please watch your language." His father mumbled something incoherently and grabbed the said plate, forgoing gravy.

_That was the beginning of rebuilding Inu-Yasha's life. It was hard and sometimes Kei's efforts seemed worthless to him…but…a spark of life returned to Inu-Yasha's eyes, he started shopping and joking and sometimes even went to work. They set up a memorial to Kagome in the living room, and even though they weren't religious, every Sunday Inu-Yasha would kneel before the little shrine and pray for his wife's spirit._

_There was still pain when she was mentioned, still some slumps that he got into, but he plowed through obstacles and believed everything would, eventually, turn out okay._

And one day they did.

**The End**


End file.
